She’d taken only a few steps when a man’s voice said, “Hey, Allie, you in the deepest shit, girl!”
She turned and was facing a husky black man with a full beard and a dangling gold earring. He’d been hurrying toward her, but now he stopped in midstride. A surprised, suspicious look washed over his blunt features. He frowned, calculating. There was something wrong with his face, a puckered scar beneath his left eye, almost like another, squinting eye.
He said, “Sorry, Miss, had you wrong,” and turned to walk across the street.
“Wait a minute!” Allie said, starting after him.
He shook his head without looking back. “Ain’t got a minute.”
He obviously knew Allie was wanted for murder, and thought it more than coincidence that a woman who so much resembled her—Hedra—had emerged from Wild Red’s. He didn’t want to talk to her, didn’t know her and didn’t want her to link him in any way to the Allie Jones he did know.
“Dammit! Need to talk!” Allie called, as he picked up too much speed for walking and started to jog.
She began chasing him, and he glanced back and broke into a flat-out run, crossing Waverly diagonally. He’d decided she was trouble he could outdistance.
He was bigger, faster. But Allie was desperate. Damn him! She lengthened her stride, feeling the strain in her thighs. Tried to breathe evenly through her nose, the way she’d been taught in gym class in high school, so she could regulate the flow of oxygen to her lungs and wouldn’t get winded too soon.
The man ahead of her could run; he had an easy, athletic stride despite his bulk. His arms swung loosely and rhythmically and his shoulder muscles rippled beneath his tight brown jacket. He gave the impression he had strength in reserve.
He cut around a comer, using some of that strength to run faster. Allie tripped over a raised section of sidewalk and almost fell. She stumbled forward half a dozen lurching steps before regaining her balance.
By the time she’d rounded the corner, he was well ahead of her. Pulling away. She was sure she was going to lose him.
But at the next corner a cluster of pedestrians waiting to cross the street slowed him down.
He glanced over his shoulder, saw Allie gaining ground, and elbowed people aside. Tires screeched and a horn blared at him as he interrupted the flow of traffic.
By the time she reached the intersection, the light had instructed the waiting throng to walk. She crossed the street at a run, bouncing off a heavyset woman who cursed at her. A female voice said, “Rude bitch!” Somebody laughed. Allie didn’t apologize or break stride, only ran faster.
She’d lost sight of the man, but she held her speed for the next block. Ahead she glimpsed a dark figure swinging around an iron railing and diving down the steps of what appeared to be the entrance to a basement apartment. Like a hunted animal going to ground.
Allie sucked in a harsh, rasping breath that seared her lungs and ran hard for the iron railing. A throbbing ache flared in her right side, threatening to buckle her body and make her slow to a bent-over walk. Keep running! Push!
She swung around the corner rail, as she’d seen her quarry do, cutting her hand on a sharp spur of wrought iron. She lunged down two of the concrete steps and then stopped, gasping for air.
A Hispanic boy about fourteen was standing hunched in the shadowy corner of the entranceway. He had his narrow back to her, but his head was twisted around so he could see her, the glow from the street catching his smooth features. Allie could hear the spattering of his urine on concrete; she breathed in the ammonia stench of it. He continued to gaze insolently over his shoulder, light from above causing the white of one eye to glitter. “What the fuck you want, lady?”
She didn’t answer.
He turned his body toward her and stood with his feet spread wide, zipping up his pants. Grinned.
Allie bolted and ran across the street, then walked back the way she’d come. She looked behind her several times to make sure the boy wasn’t following.
After a few blocks, her breathing evened out and the pain in her side faded away. But her thighs still ached and her knees felt weak. She walked slowly, trying to collect her thoughts.
At least she’d met people who’d seen Hedra pretending to be her. Hedra using her name and clothes and mannerisms. Not the sort of people who’d talk to the police, though, even if they might be believed. Even if the police could locate most of them.
But what did it all actually prove? The police would think it had been Allie herself who’d frequented Wild Red’s, dressed and made up for picking up men, then, in less extreme clothes and makeup tonight, she hadn’t been recognized. Certainly that’s what a prosecutor would maintain in court.
And it sounded plausible, she had to admit. More plausible than her story.
Again, Allie found herself wondering if Hedra really existed.
Chapter 32
THE next morning, in her room at the Willmont, Allie counted her money. She still had enough to meet her needs for a while, but even living as she was, Manhattan proved expensive. It was a city where money talked, growled, and laughed, and would step over you for dead. Even the air was expensive; a doctor would tell you that. Trading the computer for cash had been no problem; deal enough with computers and computer people, and you learn where hard and software might be bought and sold cheap and without questions. But stolen jewelry was another matter. She had no idea where to exchange it for cash.
From the brown envelope she’d stuck behind the bottom dresser drawer, she got out one of Mayfair’s gold chains, a thick, eighteen-inch one lettered 14 KARATE on the clasp. There was also an M engraved there; Allie assumed that was merchandise or manufacturing coding and not Mayfair’s monogram. And even if it was a monogram, so what? Plenty of people whose last names began with M. She hefted the tangled chain in her hand, closing her eyes as if that would heighten her sensitivity. It was surprisingly heavy and should be worth more than the others.
She returned the envelope to its hiding place behind the drawer. Then she slipped into her jacket, dropped the chain in a pocket, and left the hotel. Eyes in the lobby followed her, as if the chain were visible and everyone knew it wasn’t hers. She almost laughed. A murderer worried about being branded a thief.
Selling the gold chain was easier than she’d imagined. She’d walked down Forty-seventh Street between Fifth and Sixth, the diamond district. Here, during the day, millions of dollars’ worth of diamonds in all kinds of settings were displayed like mere baubles.
Halfway down the block, Allie had gone into a small shopping arcade lined with tiny shops, chosen the smallest, and told the man behind the counter she wanted to sell her husband’s gold chain. He was a tiny man with a black beard and had a skullcap perched on the back of his head like a dark bald spot. He studied Allie for a few seconds, then examined the chain briefly with the jeweler’s loop that was dangling from a red string around his neck. He held the chain up to the light, then let it coil gently down into the small metal cradle of a scale.
In a thick Yiddish accent he said, “I can give you five hundred dollars, no more.”
Allie didn’t want to seem eager. “Can’t you make it seven hundred?”
The man shrugged. “So I’ll make it five-fifty. And I mean no more. Really. Final. Finis. Check the price of gold, figure my profit margin, you’ll see that’s more than fair.”
“Cash?”
The man played the chain like liquid through his fingers, thinking about that. Though he was small, he had long, elegant fingers. “Sure, cash,” he said. He handed the chain back to Allie, said, “Wait here,” and disappeared beyond a thick hanging curtain that soaked up light like velvet.